Idaho eyes changes to land-line phone rules

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The Idaho Public Utilities Commission is considering a rule change that would no longer require land-line phone service providers to fix outages within 24 hours or be forced to give customers a billing credit.

Instead outages would have to be fixed within 48 hours, there would no longer be any requirement for a billing credit and weekend outages could be fixed the following Monday or Tuesday. A decision is expected in two to three weeks.

Officials at CenturyLink, the state's largest land-line telephone service provider, say the old rule puts them at a competitive disadvantage to wireless, cable and voice-over-internet providers.

The Idaho AARP is protesting the proposed rule change.

AARP spokesman David Irwin told The Spokesman-Review that older consumers are much more reliant on land-line phones.